Monday, November 10, 2014

Cdl Burke a "schismatic" for criticizing the Pope?? Please.

The author of "St. Robert Bellarmine on judging a Pope" (Athanasius Contra Mundum, November 8, 2014), notes that there are a lot of comments going about the internet attacking Cardinal Burke for his "criticism" of Pope Francis -- this, even after the good Cardinal has "walked back" his comments, stressing that he had no intention of criticizing the Holy Father's person, but only indicating the "great harm" being done by his neglecting to take a clear position on issues during the recent Synod.

Nevertheless, writes the author: "Some have gone so far as to call Cardinal Burke Schismatic"!!!

He continues:

I wonder what they would have said about St. Robert Bellarmine, saint and Doctor of the Church, who said the following (to my knowledge, this has never been rendered into English before.

St. Robert Bellarmine makes an interesting comment in the famous chapter of De Romano Pontifice where he discusses the question of the loss of Papal office. It is in the article immediately before the one sedevacantists frequently use, namely in De Romano Pontifice, Bk II, Chapter 30:

“The third opinion is on another extreme, certainly, that a Pope cannot be deposed either through secret heresy, or through manifest heresy. This recalls and refutes Bishop Turrecremata (loc cit) [Bellarmine is noting in the previous point, citing this Bishop, where he rejects that a secret heretic can be judged] and certainly is an improbable opinion. Firstly, that a heretical Pope can be judged, is expressly held in Can. Si Papa dist. 40, and with Innocent III (serm. 2 de consec. pontif.) And what is more, in the 8th Council, (act. 7) the acts of the Roman Council under Pope Hadrian are recited, and therein contained, that Pope Honorius appears to be justly anathematized, because he had been convicted of heresy, which is the only reason permitted for inferiors to judge superiors. It must be noted, that although it is probable that Honorius was not a heretic, and that Pope Hadrian II was deceived from corrupt examples of the VI Council, and Honorius was reckoned falsely to be a heretic, nevertheless we cannot deny, in fact Hadrian with the Roman Council, nay more the whole 8th general council had sensed, in the case of heresy a Roman Pontiff can be judged. Add, what would be the most miserable condition of the Church, if she would be compelled to acknowledge a manifestly prowling wolf for a shepherd.”

13 comments:

O,and is M.j. supposed to believe the Yosemite Sam of Patheos, Mr Shea, or Saint Robert Bellarmine, a Doctor of the Catholic Church?

It is simply girlie man time to slither off into quietism when the revolution within the form of Catholicism has shed its putative continuity solemn procession and started to hop around Saint Peter's Square on the surprise Pogo Stick of modernism?

Ben, I suppose you'd have to ask the author; but the first search I did turned up this, wherein James Martin, SJ tweets: "At least monsignor Lefebvre waited a few years after Vatican II before creating a schism":

>Ben, I suppose you'd have to ask the author; but the first search I did turned up this, wherein James Martin, SJ tweets: "At least monsignor Lefebvre waited a few years after Vatican II before creating a schism":

I saw that on Fr Z after I posted when I tried to loo a bit harder. Maybe I am too caught up in conservative Catholic media culture but a tweet by some obscure Jesuit Academic doesn't seem like much.

Guys like Fr Richard McBrian I've herd of but "James Martin SJ" who is this guy again?

Ben, I think you may be too dismissive and missing the forest for the trees. Something closer to a notable attitude here among some conservative Catholics -- a number of Catholic apologists, for instance, who would readily worry about Burke in this manner, and would certainly classify many traditionalists well within the bonds of HMC (like Michael Matt, Louie Verrecchio, Christopher Ferrara, John Vennari, etc.), nonetheless, as something close to "schismatics," which I think is altogether unjust.

My own view is that HMC allows a great deal of room for disagreement about many things among fellow Catholics committed to the integrity of Church teaching.

.>Something closer to a notable attitude here among some conservative Catholics -- a number of Catholic apologists, for instance, who would readily worry about Burke in this manner, and would certainly classify many traditionalists well within the bonds of HMC (like Michael Matt, Louie Verrecchio, Christopher Ferrara, John Vennari, etc.), nonetheless, as something close to "schismatics," which I think is altogether unjust.

I don't know that the post's author is saying that conservatives are calling him this, though it wouldn't surprise me if there were some hair brainer out there.

Still, I think any fair-minded observer would agree that attitudes toward the Pope range from rabidly critical (at both ends of the spectrum) to ultramontanist. And I can well imagine some of the more off-the-edge types among the latter who could not even imagine criticizing the pope if he said that 2 X 2 were 5, since we must be respectful and he's the Vicar of Christ.

Well, I thought it was obvious that the libs who used it ("schism") in the referenced tweet did so insincerely to make a rhetorical point. Only a deranged "conservative" would ever sincerely use it with reference to a good and holy Cardinal like Cardinal Burke.